6 ms·

I’ve heard people advise not to call such hotlines because their intervention is not limited to just talking to you. It’s said they often cal the police who sto

I’ve heard people advise not to call such hotlines because their intervention is not limited to just talking to you. It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was.

takenpilot 4y ago
This is true, actually. A good friend of mine disappeared for a while because of this. The story he told me about the experience afterward was wild.
tyingq 4y ago
Some of that is on the FAQ page: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs Will 988 calls be referred to 911? Currently, a small percentage of Lifeline calls require activation of the 911 system when there is imminent risk to someone’s life that cannot be reduced during the Lifeline call. In these cases, the crisis counselor shares information with 911 that is crucial to saving the caller’s life. So it does sound like that can happen. Though I don't know what else they could reasonably do if it sounds like the caller is imminently going to do serious self-harm.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  This is likewise true of any human interaction. It’s not like they’re going to promise to never refer a situation to emergency services.
myself248 4y ago
Yup. A friend related a similar story to me. Having some counselors stop by or something, might be cool, but the police are basically the opposite of that, at least today, at least in most places. I can't imagine a worse sequence of events to kick off.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  You don’t hear about the police interventions that go well.
- least 4y ago
  By most accounts, the sequence of committing suicide has much worse outcomes for the individual than forceful intervention by police.
  - myself248 4y ago
    You say that like there's a difference. The first person I know who committed suicide, did so after being arrested for something that shouldn't have even been illegal. But the ordeal into which he was plunged by law enforcement was too much to handle. He was very stressed out by the shame of being in the newspaper and such, but nobody realized the degree until it was too late. The second, too. Different details but overall similar scenario; he wrote of the feeling of being ground up by this massive machine. Want to make someone feel hopeless, start by sending police in place of counselors. I only know two people who've committed suicide. So that's not a great track record for police making things better.
    - least 4y ago
      > You say that like there's a difference. There is a difference. Actively preventing someone from committing suicide, taking them from the absolute brink of destruction, is the first step towards recovery. Intervention works. > The first person I know who committed suicide, did so after being arrested for something that shouldn't have even been illegal. But the ordeal into which he was plunged by law enforcement was too much to handle. He was very stressed out by the shame of being in the newspaper and such, but nobody realized the degree until it was too late. I'm sorry to hear that, but that's entirely non sequitur to my point. > Want to make someone feel hopeless, start by sending police in place of counselors. Intervention by police to prevent someone actively trying to kill himself results in better outcomes for the person than the person actually killing himself. Or it could be firefighters. Or a random passerby. Police are sent because they are what is available.
autoexec 4y ago
I also wonder what the impacts of having "Placed calls to the suicide hotline" in your permanent record will be on people's lives if they do choose not to take it. With the state collecting that data, your phone company collecting that data, your cell phone OS collecting that data, random apps collecting that data, and who knows who is on the other end of that call and what they're doing with your data. Will you be turned down for jobs because when a company has a choice between two equal job candidates and one of them has shown suicidal tendencies at any point why should they risk that their employee will kill himself and lose money on re-hiring/re-training? Will your health insurance company buy that data? Your life insurance company? Could you lose your right to own a firearm? Can it cost you custody of your children? Will it end up leaked or "lost" on a USB drive and find itself on the internet?
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. This is actually one of the big hurdles to getting some people into therapy/treatment/medication that they need: They imagine a lot of catastrophic scenarios about what could possibly happen if they get the help they need, which creates a gridlock that traps them in their situation. From a pure risk management perspective, the highest risk by far in these scenarios is failing to accept help that could improve the underlying problems. If someone reaches the point of considering suicide, it doesn't make sense to refuse help due to hypothetical fears about some future job obtaining phone records and declining someone for a job (which isn't a thing that happens, BTW). Don't let fear of far-reaching hypotheticals get in the way of making progress on mental health.
  - WebbWeaver 4y ago
    You are 100% wrong. The current infrastructure only exists to reduce liability (hr ect) and nothing more. It could be subsidized to prevent poor outcomes but I'm honestly afraid of the lobbying against it.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening every day. I would agree that it might be better to take the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life worth living. The reality is that we've created and enabled a system that hurts people. Our communications are logged forever and we have no power to limit the ways that data can be used against us. It's only natural for people to take that into account before doing something that makes them so very vulnerable.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was. I asked a friend who volunteers for one of these hotlines. He says it's actually rare and the guidelines are more about people are in imminent danger to themselves or others (e.g. threatening suicide by a method that would endanger other people in the process, or worse, implying threats of hurting other people or inducing suicide by cop). Definitely not the common or standard outcome, though.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > or worse, implying threats of hurting other people or inducing suicide by cop "What's this? The caller intends to commit suicide by cop? Surely sending cops to kick down his door will put a stop to that!"
wolverine876 4y ago
We're spreading FUD about even a suicide prevention hotline? This is going way too far. Someone who needs help might not get it.
Sam_Odio 4y ago
This is an special problem for the uninsured that struggle with mental health. A close friend struggled with bipolar. She was uninsured and making close to minimum wage…calls to suicide prevention hotlines resulted in thousands of dollars in new bills from ER visits and even involuntary psychiatric care. She was struggling to pay rent. Being discharged in effectively the same condition as before but with new debt she wouldn’t be able to pay off for years…the medical bills for involuntary psychiatric care were their own special sort of crazy. See https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030319 https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.2...
zahma 4y ago
I am a Crisis Text Line volunteer. So the short answer is yes we do call EMS when we have to. I posted this longer answer in a different parent on this thread, but I'll re-post it since it directly speaks to your question and sheds some light on the criteria we use to determine if someone might harm themselves. "...We are trained to risk assess each and every texter, irrespective of our intuition about their mental state. That means I treat someone testing the system like I would someone who has been flagged as an imminent suicide risk. Supervisors monitor this evolution of the conversation closely. The assessment is important because ultimately the decision to call emergency services comes after that rigorous assessment of the person's suicidal ideation, followed by their plan and access to means, as well as their timeline. If all those criteria are met, I contact my supervisor, and then we work on separation from means. If those criteria are not met, we continue the conversation accordingly. I have personally walked numerous people back from the edge simply by talking to them and hearing them out; often times, texters deemed imminent risks are capable of staying safe that night after we have come up with a safety plan for them together. Calling EMS is truly a last resort and not an attempt to cast off responsibility. In the cases when we do call emergency services, it is after we have exhausted all other options. It should be noted that access to geolocation is strictly limited to these supervisors, and in all likelihood is limited to a texter's phone number alone. It's not like they have a backdoor into AT&T, and the supervisor must make a call to emergency services directly. From what I can tell, very little information is given back to CTL. On occasion, I can see a timeline that EMS was dispatched but rarely do I ever learn about the outcome. The success of the platform is that we can work with people to find them their own solutions. CTL was not a viable intermediary for calling 911." I've volunteered nearly 300 hours, most of those were dead of night EST. I've spoken to several hundred people, and maybe a couple dozen have been flagged as imminent risk. Of those flags, I can count on one hand those who have required a call to EMS. Mostly, I'm able to come up with a safety plan with them and get them through the night.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  Calling the authorities under _any_ circumstances where the person is not planning to harm anyone else is unacceptable. The way you talk seems to presume that all suicidal people are out of their mind and irrational and need to be protected from themselves, which allows you to rationalize neglecting respect for their bodily autonomy. My body, my choice. It’s a person’s goddamn right to make the choice whether it’s better for them to continue living or not. How can we call ourselves free persons if we’re not even in control of our own body?
specialist 4y ago
SWAT showed up to my house, looking for a suicidal person, who may have had a gun. Wrong address. Fortunately, I only had to walk out into the middle of my street in my PJs. Sadly, my biggest concern was some trigger happy lunatic would kill my new dog, imaging a hyperactive doodle puppy as a vicious cop killing hellhound. I'm still a little fuzzy on why a health check requires a paramilitary response. Wouldn't it be safer and cheaper to have some sweet little old lady with a clip board knock on my door?

takenpilot 4y ago

This is true, actually. A good friend of mine disappeared for a while because of this. The story he told me about the experience afterward was wild.

tyingq 4y ago

Some of that is on the FAQ page: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988/faqs Will 988 calls be referred to 911? Currently, a small percentage of Lifeline calls require activation of the 911 system when there is imminent risk to someone’s life that cannot be reduced during the Lifeline call. In these cases, the crisis counselor shares information with 911 that is crucial to saving the caller’s life. So it does sound like that can happen. Though I don't know what else they could reasonably do if it sounds like the caller is imminently going to do serious self-harm.

colechristensen 4y ago
This is likewise true of any human interaction. It’s not like they’re going to promise to never refer a situation to emergency services.

myself248 4y ago

Yup. A friend related a similar story to me. Having some counselors stop by or something, might be cool, but the police are basically the opposite of that, at least today, at least in most places. I can't imagine a worse sequence of events to kick off.

colechristensen 4y ago
You don’t hear about the police interventions that go well.
least 4y ago
By most accounts, the sequence of committing suicide has much worse outcomes for the individual than forceful intervention by police.
- myself248 4y ago
  You say that like there's a difference. The first person I know who committed suicide, did so after being arrested for something that shouldn't have even been illegal. But the ordeal into which he was plunged by law enforcement was too much to handle. He was very stressed out by the shame of being in the newspaper and such, but nobody realized the degree until it was too late. The second, too. Different details but overall similar scenario; he wrote of the feeling of being ground up by this massive machine. Want to make someone feel hopeless, start by sending police in place of counselors. I only know two people who've committed suicide. So that's not a great track record for police making things better.
  - least 4y ago
    > You say that like there's a difference. There is a difference. Actively preventing someone from committing suicide, taking them from the absolute brink of destruction, is the first step towards recovery. Intervention works. > The first person I know who committed suicide, did so after being arrested for something that shouldn't have even been illegal. But the ordeal into which he was plunged by law enforcement was too much to handle. He was very stressed out by the shame of being in the newspaper and such, but nobody realized the degree until it was too late. I'm sorry to hear that, but that's entirely non sequitur to my point. > Want to make someone feel hopeless, start by sending police in place of counselors. Intervention by police to prevent someone actively trying to kill himself results in better outcomes for the person than the person actually killing himself. Or it could be firefighters. Or a random passerby. Police are sent because they are what is available.

autoexec 4y ago

I also wonder what the impacts of having "Placed calls to the suicide hotline" in your permanent record will be on people's lives if they do choose not to take it. With the state collecting that data, your phone company collecting that data, your cell phone OS collecting that data, random apps collecting that data, and who knows who is on the other end of that call and what they're doing with your data. Will you be turned down for jobs because when a company has a choice between two equal job candidates and one of them has shown suicidal tendencies at any point why should they risk that their employee will kill himself and lose money on re-hiring/re-training? Will your health insurance company buy that data? Your life insurance company? Could you lose your right to own a firearm? Can it cost you custody of your children? Will it end up leaked or "lost" on a USB drive and find itself on the internet?

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. This is actually one of the big hurdles to getting some people into therapy/treatment/medication that they need: They imagine a lot of catastrophic scenarios about what could possibly happen if they get the help they need, which creates a gridlock that traps them in their situation. From a pure risk management perspective, the highest risk by far in these scenarios is failing to accept help that could improve the underlying problems. If someone reaches the point of considering suicide, it doesn't make sense to refuse help due to hypothetical fears about some future job obtaining phone records and declining someone for a job (which isn't a thing that happens, BTW). Don't let fear of far-reaching hypotheticals get in the way of making progress on mental health.
- WebbWeaver 4y ago
  You are 100% wrong. The current infrastructure only exists to reduce liability (hr ect) and nothing more. It could be subsidized to prevent poor outcomes but I'm honestly afraid of the lobbying against it.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening every day. I would agree that it might be better to take the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life worth living. The reality is that we've created and enabled a system that hurts people. Our communications are logged forever and we have no power to limit the ways that data can be used against us. It's only natural for people to take that into account before doing something that makes them so very vulnerable.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was. I asked a friend who volunteers for one of these hotlines. He says it's actually rare and the guidelines are more about people are in imminent danger to themselves or others (e.g. threatening suicide by a method that would endanger other people in the process, or worse, implying threats of hurting other people or inducing suicide by cop). Definitely not the common or standard outcome, though.

yellowapple 4y ago
> or worse, implying threats of hurting other people or inducing suicide by cop "What's this? The caller intends to commit suicide by cop? Surely sending cops to kick down his door will put a stop to that!"

wolverine876 4y ago

We're spreading FUD about even a suicide prevention hotline? This is going way too far. Someone who needs help might not get it.

Sam_Odio 4y ago

This is an special problem for the uninsured that struggle with mental health. A close friend struggled with bipolar. She was uninsured and making close to minimum wage…calls to suicide prevention hotlines resulted in thousands of dollars in new bills from ER visits and even involuntary psychiatric care. She was struggling to pay rent. Being discharged in effectively the same condition as before but with new debt she wouldn’t be able to pay off for years…the medical bills for involuntary psychiatric care were their own special sort of crazy. See https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030319 https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.2...

zahma 4y ago

I am a Crisis Text Line volunteer. So the short answer is yes we do call EMS when we have to. I posted this longer answer in a different parent on this thread, but I'll re-post it since it directly speaks to your question and sheds some light on the criteria we use to determine if someone might harm themselves. "...We are trained to risk assess each and every texter, irrespective of our intuition about their mental state. That means I treat someone testing the system like I would someone who has been flagged as an imminent suicide risk. Supervisors monitor this evolution of the conversation closely. The assessment is important because ultimately the decision to call emergency services comes after that rigorous assessment of the person's suicidal ideation, followed by their plan and access to means, as well as their timeline. If all those criteria are met, I contact my supervisor, and then we work on separation from means. If those criteria are not met, we continue the conversation accordingly. I have personally walked numerous people back from the edge simply by talking to them and hearing them out; often times, texters deemed imminent risks are capable of staying safe that night after we have come up with a safety plan for them together. Calling EMS is truly a last resort and not an attempt to cast off responsibility. In the cases when we do call emergency services, it is after we have exhausted all other options. It should be noted that access to geolocation is strictly limited to these supervisors, and in all likelihood is limited to a texter's phone number alone. It's not like they have a backdoor into AT&T, and the supervisor must make a call to emergency services directly. From what I can tell, very little information is given back to CTL. On occasion, I can see a timeline that EMS was dispatched but rarely do I ever learn about the outcome. The success of the platform is that we can work with people to find them their own solutions. CTL was not a viable intermediary for calling 911." I've volunteered nearly 300 hours, most of those were dead of night EST. I've spoken to several hundred people, and maybe a couple dozen have been flagged as imminent risk. Of those flags, I can count on one hand those who have required a call to EMS. Mostly, I'm able to come up with a safety plan with them and get them through the night.

TexanFeller 4y ago
Calling the authorities under _any_ circumstances where the person is not planning to harm anyone else is unacceptable. The way you talk seems to presume that all suicidal people are out of their mind and irrational and need to be protected from themselves, which allows you to rationalize neglecting respect for their bodily autonomy. My body, my choice. It’s a person’s goddamn right to make the choice whether it’s better for them to continue living or not. How can we call ourselves free persons if we’re not even in control of our own body?

specialist 4y ago

SWAT showed up to my house, looking for a suicidal person, who may have had a gun. Wrong address. Fortunately, I only had to walk out into the middle of my street in my PJs. Sadly, my biggest concern was some trigger happy lunatic would kill my new dog, imaging a hyperactive doodle puppy as a vicious cop killing hellhound. I'm still a little fuzzy on why a health check requires a paramilitary response. Wouldn't it be safer and cheaper to have some sweet little old lady with a clip board knock on my door?